Lots of conservatives are feeling upset, cheated, or – worst of all – doomed.  We have watched an  uncanny and statistically unlikely wave of contests moving from GOP to Dem wins as more votes are discovered. Writing at Commentary, NeverTrumper John Podhoretz lays out the doom scenario:

Resist the happy talk. This election is very bad for the GOP, and harbingers ill for 2020. With the exception of Ohio, Democrats have shown strength in the states that gave Donald Trump his victory in 2016.

Ds took two Congressional seats in Iowa, defeated Scott Walker in his third gubernatorial bid in Wisconsin, and won most of the Pennsylvania House seats they tried for (with the happy exception of the defeat of the anti-Israel grandson-of-a-Soviet-lover Scott Wallace). Democrats romped in Michigan, notwithstanding a surprising showing for the GOP gubernatorial candidate (who still lost). (snip)

Remember that 80,000 votes across three states in the upper Midwest made Trump president. Getting 80,000 new voters to replace the ones who didn’t turn out for Hillary Clinton in 2016 shouldn’t be that hard for Dems, especially since they know exactly where they need to go to get them.

Meanwhile, The scenario I’ve painted here suggests states he won—Florida, Iowa, Georgia, Arizona—might be lost, in which case it doesn’t matter all that much what happens in the upper Midwest. Dems might only need to win one of those back, or two. Meanwhile, the results suggest there isn’t a single state Trump failed to carry that is moving in his direction.

AT’s political director Richard Baehr, no Pollyanna, is not convinced. He writes in an email:

The GOP  may wind up with governors in Florida, Arizona, Texas, Georgia, and Ohio. Several of these are swing states in 2020 (maybe all of them) and this will help in the presidential and House races.  Wisconsin was a very close loss for Scott Walker.  This was his 4th statewide run, and he lost by 1%.  The state is not gone.

The Michigan senate run by the black candidate for GOP, John James,  was surprisingly close: 6%.   And he had no money to run against an incumbent. Pennsylvania was very bad, but if Trump holds Florida, Arizona, Georgia, North Carolina, and Texas, he does not need Pennsylvania.  If he can win in Michigan or Wisconsin -- which is not impossibile, he can eb re-elected.  

Right now, the  map looks very bad for GOP but it also did on Election Day 2016.

One way to lose for sure is to assume one is going to lose.